This blog is written by a journalist based in Mumbai who writes about cities, the environment, developmental issues, the media, women and many other subjects.The title 'ulti khopdi' is a Hindi phrase referring to someone who likes to look at things from the other side.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

It's not only about Tehelka

The incident reflects on the state of the Indian media as a whole and
its attitude towards sexual harassment at the workplace and how it is to
be handled,
writes KALPANA SHARMA.

PIX: Tarun Tejpal

Posted/Updated
Friday, Nov 22 17:26:10, 2013

SECOND TAKEKalpana Sharma

The issue is Tehelka, and it is not. It is Tehelka
because in the charge of sexual assault brought by a magazine staffer
against the editor, Tarun Tejpal, the name of the magazine he founded
and nurtured cannot be avoided. Thus even though the issue is about two
individuals, it is also about the way a magazine that has set out to
challenge and expose institutions, functions internally. The response of
Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhary, the managing editor of the magazine to what
the latter has inappropriately termed “an untoward incident” tells a
story that reflects on the values the magazine purports to support.

On the other hand, the issue is not only about Tehelka.
It reflects on the state of the Indian media as a whole and its
attitude towards sexual harassment at the workplace and how it is to be
handled.

But let us look at several issues that the Tejpal episode raises. The incident that the staffer has detailed in her email to Tehelka managing
editor Shoma Choudhary took place in Goa during the Think festival that
the magazine organises each year. The staffer was given duties, such as
looking after one of the foreign guests (duties that normally would
fall outside the remit of a journalist, but we are told that Tehelka editorial
staff have no choice in the matter). In other words, she was on work
even if, technically speaking, the location was not her workplace. As
such, the equation between her and Tejpal was unequal, with the former
being an employee and the latter her boss. In classic cases of sexual
harassment, it is precisely this kind of unequal power situation that
comes into play.

Second,
is one of attitude. This comes out in the messages that Tejpal
allegedly sent to the woman after the two occasions when he assaulted
her. In these messages he wanted her to agree that all this was just
“banter”. The dictionary meaning of “banter” is “the playful friendly
exchange of teasing remarks”. Forcing yourself on a woman is not
“banter” by any stretch of the imagination. Yet the very fact that this
is how he perceived it reveals the attitude of many men who think
nothing of doing the same or similar things to the women with whom they
work.

Third,
we come to impunity. In his email to Choudhary, where he seeks
“atonement” and wants to “recuse” himself from editorship for six months
(why six and not 10, or 12 or any other number?), you sense a
confidence that this is something that can be dealt with if you move
quickly and are slick about it. So before the storm could break (and if
you looked at social media on Thursday, it was nothing less than that),
Tejpal sent off his infamous email. And Choudhary accepted his apology
with alacrity, virtually dismissing the seriousness of the crime by
calling it an “untoward incident” while Tejpal referred to it as “an
error of judgment”. We can quibble about the two letters but what is
evident is that both are brazenly ignoring the established law in this
country.

According
to the earlier Visakha guidelines on sexual harassment, formulated by
the Supreme Court in 1997, and the recent Sexual Harassment at the
Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013, it is
mandatory for institutions to have Internal Inquiry Committees
consisting of representatives of the employer and employees and at least
one outside member who knows the law and is familiar with incidents
involving sexual harassment. It is also mandated that half the members
of the committee must be women.

Tehelka
did not have such a committee in place (although it has now gone about
setting it up). There was no inquiry held. And yet both the editor and
the managing editor saw nothing wrong in unilaterally deciding that an
apology and the editor “recusing” himself for six months was an adequate
response to the very serious charge of sexual assault. In her mail to
Choudhary, the woman had, in fact, explicitly asked for an inquiry.

These three aspects speak poorly not just of the individuals involved, or the publication, but also of the media as a whole. Tehelka
is not an exception in its cavalier approach towards the crime of
sexual harassment. We in the media point our fingers at every
conceivable institution in this country and think it well within our
rights to question and expose their shortcomings. Yet, how many media
houses have complied with the Sexual Harassment Act and set up inquiry
committees as required by this law? If a survey were to be conducted
today, it is more than likely that less than a handful would have done
so. For an institution that is constantly claiming the high moral
ground, this lackadaisical attitude towards something that is not just
mandated by law but is essential for the safety and well-being of the
growing number of women in the media is unacceptable.

Another
aspect that has emerged, yet again, is the power and the downside of
social media. In a few hours, not only were the two letters of Tejpal
and Choudhary circulating widely but also the confidential email sent by
the Tehelka staffer to Choudhary. As Reetika Subramanian points out in her blog posting on the feminist blog Ultra Violet:

“Amidst
the hordes of tweets and other posts on social media, another
disturbing aspect that came to the fore was the brazen voyeurism of the
masses. The Twitterati also christened themselves as the messiahs for
justice.

“Bits
and pieces from the confidential e-mail sent out by the victim made its
way to social media websites. Within minutes, intimate details about
the grave nature of the ‘unfortunate incident’ were analysed,
re-analysed, tweeted and re-tweeted.

“The
words ‘penetration’ and ‘disrobing’ invited the wrath of several
tweeple. Conversations on the World Wide Web were spent on finding
aspects to identify the ‘victim’ without naming her. Thus, with every
minute passing by and every new notification, the seriousness of the
offence was duly replaced with the need for more intimate details.

“Under
the guise of disseminating ‘justice’ and backing the ‘victim’, there
were aspersions cast against Tejpal’s twenty-something daughter.
Eventually, she succumbed to the pressure and according to news reports,
was compelled to delete her Twitter account.

“In
this cacophony, I fear that this ‘unfortunate incident’ i.e. an act of
‘sexual harassment’ will be eclipsed by hypocrisy, voyeurism and the
unending need to dispense justice in 140 characters.”

From
the above it is evident that like mainstream media, social media too is
being used to give out salacious details about sexual crimes rather
than finding ways to deal with them. In the last one year, despite the
discussions around rape coverage that ensued following the December 16,
2012 gang-rape in Delhi, we have seen how much of mainstream media still
continues to skirt dangerously close to giving hints about the raped
woman’s identity as also giving unnecesary details about the actual
crime. This serves no other purpose except satisfying readers who
follow all such crime reports as if they were serialised crime fiction
stories.

Above
all, this episode reminds us yet again that the media is far from
exemplary when it comes to covering crimes against women or to dealing
with sexual harassment in the workplace. This would be as good a time as
any to turn the searchlight inwards for both media institutions and social media users.

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Journalist, columnist, writer based in Mumbai. Author of "Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia's largest slum" (Penguin, 2000). Worked with The Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express and Himmat Weekly.
Other books include "Whose News? The Media and Women's Issues" edited with Ammu Joseph (published by Sage 1994/2006), "Terror Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out" edited with Ammu Joesph (published by Kali for Women, 2003) and "Missing: Half the Story, Journalism as if Gender Matters" (published by Zubaan, 2010).
Regular columns in The Hindu, Sunday Magazine and on The Hoot (www.thehoot.org).